But it was the future Humayun needed to think about now. Sitting tall on his throne he began. ‘My patience with my half-brothers is at an end. They will always be a danger until their forces are destroyed and they are caught.’
‘Our troops have been unlucky. . one day we will succeed in taking them prisoner,’ said Zahid Beg. He regarded the failure to defeat Kamran and Askari as a blemish on his honour.
‘If we carry on as at present I doubt it — unless we are very lucky. I have long suspected that they have spies among our soldiers as well as in the city. That is why they always elude us, making us waste time and energy that would be better spent elsewhere.’
‘But what more can we do?’ asked Zahid Beg.
‘That is why I have summoned you here. Dealing with Kamran and Askari and their mountain raiders cannot be beyond us. Kabul is wealthy. The merchants who come here to trade and fill our caravanserais are numerous. The taxes they pay fill our treasury. I have been preserving this wealth for my long-postponed invasion of Hindustan but I intend to spend some of it to deal once and for all with the problem of my half-brothers. . ’
‘How, Majesty?’ asked Zahid Beg.
‘I will give my own body weight in gold to any man who captures either of my half-brothers. We will also redouble our own efforts — mobilise all our troops to hunt for them. I will lead them myself. I will also pay large sums to tribesmen to ride with us. They know every ripple and fold of the mountains. I pledge not to rest until my half-brothers are caught.’
‘Majesty, one of our patrols reports smoke rising from Karabagh,’ Ahmed Khan said, galloping up to Humayun and reining in his white horse so sharply it snorted in protest.
‘You think the settlement’s under attack?’
‘I’m sure of it, Majesty.’
‘Then let’s ride.’ As his horse’s hooves beat the sun-hardened earth beneath a glaring orange sun, Humayun allowed himself to hope that at last he was getting close to Kamran and Askari. For the past three weeks he and his men had been following in the wake of a large raiding party through the mountainous valleys north of Kabul, always arriving only in time to find settlements burned, orchards hacked down and bodies already putrefying in the intense summer heat. But Karabagh was only about four miles away. Humayun remembered it well from hunting trips in his youth — a large, prosperous place with almond and apricot orchards irrigated by a willow-fringed stream flowing past the mud walls that enclosed it.
The five hundred troops riding at his back — mounted archers and cavalrymen with bright, steel-tipped spears — should be more than enough to deal with whoever was attacking Karabagh, he thought. As he swept round the side of a hill on which a few young oak trees had taken root, Karabagh and its orchards came into view. It wasn’t the peaceful scene Humayun remembered. Fields and orchards had been set alight and through the acrid drifting smoke he saw that the gates into the settlement had been torn down. Even above the thundering of hooves he thought he heard screaming.
‘For justice!’ Humayun yelled and, circling Alamgir above his head, he urged his horse to a gallop, outstripping his bodyguards. He was the first through the shattered gateway and into the settlement, swerving his mount around the body of an old man from whose bloodied back a battleaxe protruded. To his right, some twenty yards away, Humayun saw two men — Chakraks from their shaggy, spherical sheep wool hats — dragging a terrified girl from a house. One of them was already loosening the drawstring of his baggy pantaloons. Seeing Humayun they gaped. Letting go of the girl, who scrambled out of the way, both men reached for their bows but Humayun was on them. With a sweep of his sword he decapitated the first man, sending his head spinning through the warm air to smash against a stone lintel. Then, pulling hard on his reins and leaning back, he brought his horse up on to its back legs and then urged it forward so its front hooves smashed down on the second Chakrak with a satisfying crunch of bone.
All around, his men, who had poured into the settlement behind him, were having the best of the fight. The raiders, intent on looting and raping, had been taken completely by surprise. Those who could were running to find cover. But all Humayun’s thoughts were now on his half-brothers. Wheeling his horse, he looked around for them among the heaving, struggling melee. ‘Majesty, get down!’ he heard Ahmed Khan yell above the shouts, groans and clashing of weapons, and ducked just in time to avoid a spear hurled at him by a wild-haired giant of a man standing on the flat roof of a house. Humayun pulled his battleaxe from the thongs securing it to his saddle and sent it hurtling through the air. It hit the man in the chest so hard he tumbled backwards off the roof as if struck by a musket ball.
Humayun’s blood was pounding in his ears. It felt good to be in the heart of the fight. Brushing the sweat from his face with his green face cloth, he saw what seemed to be the last surviving raiders running towards some horses tethered to the wooden frame above a well. ‘Let no one escape,’ he yelled as, pulling his own mount round, he bore down on them. Leaning forward, he grabbed one man by the shoulder as he was about to jump on to his horse and with a violent push sent him sprawling to the ground. Reining in, Humayun shouted at the man as he lay in the dust, ‘Whose men are you? Answer me at once or I’ll put my sword through your throat.’ The man was winded and still struggling to speak when Humayun heard a familiar voice behind him.
‘They are mine. I surrender. Let’s be done with all this.’
Turning, Humayun saw Askari standing about four yards behind him, thin face streaked with blood from a cut above his right eyebrow. At his feet were his curved sword and a throwing dagger. When they saw what their leader had done, Askari’s remaining men also dropped their weapons.
By now, Humayun’s men were all around. ‘Tie them all up,’ he ordered. Then, dismounting, he slowly approached Askari. Puzzlement at his brother’s behaviour and the knowledge of how close he might have come to death at his hands if Askari had used his weapons rather than discarding them, combined to make him take refuge in a simpler emotion — anger.
‘How dare you bring destruction and havoc to my people — our people?’
Askari said nothing.
‘You’ve never had the guts to act alone. Kamran must be nearby. Where is he?’
Askari wiped away the blood that was still leaking from the cut on his face. ‘You’re wrong. I haven’t seen Kamran for over five months. I don’t know where he is.’ His black eyes met Humayun’s.
Humayun came closer and dropped his voice so they could not be overheard. ‘I don’t understand. You could have attacked me from behind before I even knew you were there.’
‘Yes.’
‘So what stopped you?’
Askari shrugged and looked away. Humayun gripped his shoulder. ‘You don’t baulk at attacking innocent people, allowing these vermin’ — he gestured at a couple of sullen Chakraks whom his men had trussed up with rope — ‘to rape and murder, so why hesitate to attack your own flesh and blood. .?’
‘Humayun. . ’
‘No, now I think about it, I’m not interested. It was probably cowardice.You knew my men would kill you if you attacked me. I don’t want to listen to any more of your lies about how sorry you are and how everything that’s happened has been Kamran’s fault.’ Humayun turned away and shouted to his guards, ‘Take him away and keep him from my sight until we reach Kabul. Just looking at him shames me.’
Not until ten days after his return to Kabul, when the trees were turning red and gold as autumn came, did Humayun finally have Askari brought before him again. His words to his men had been the honest truth — he was ashamed of his half-brother, of the depths to which he had fallen and the dishonour it had brought to their family. Pallid and thinner than ever from his confinement in the common dungeons, Askari shuffled slowly into Humayun’s private apartments, hands bound, legs shackled and flanked by guards. ‘Leave us,’ Humayun ordered them, ‘but stay within call.’ As the double doors of mulberry wood closed behind them, Humayun walked to his gilded chair,
sat down, and chin in hand looked Askari in the face.
‘There’s something I’ve never understood.Twice I’ve spared your life though you threatened mine. More than that, I invited you to be not just my brother but my ally in my invasion of Hindustan. . You must think I’ve wronged you, yet I offered you everything. . ’
Askari slowly shook his head. ‘You didn’t,’ he said in a low voice. ‘All you ever offered me and Kamran was a little of your reflected glory — not power and lands of our own. I see from your face that you don’t understand, but for you life’s always been about your so-called “great destiny”.’
‘It’s not just my destiny — it belongs to us all.’
‘Does it? What about the saying of our people, taktya, takhta, “throne or coffin”? That’s not about a shared destiny — it’s about winner takes all. Humayun, let us speak plainly — perhaps more honestly than we ever have in all these years. I don’t like you but I don’t hate you. . I never did. I was just looking out for myself as you would have done in my place.’
‘You’re just making excuses for thwarted ambition and greed.’
Askari looked down at his bound hands. ‘That’s what you call it. I’d say it was a desire for independence — the freedom I’d have enjoyed if our father had divided his territories fairly between his sons as our ancestors did.’ He paused.
‘But you didn’t have to betray me. Hindal didn’t.’
At the mention of Hindal Askari’s self-righteous expression altered. ‘Hindal was different from any of us. He was as gentle as he was big in stature. He was without guile and so naive that he expected everyone to be as honourable as he was. You lost a good ally when you stole Hamida from him. . ’ Suddenly there were tears in Askari’s eyes. ‘I wish. . but what’s the point. . ’
‘What do you wish?’ Humayun rose from his chair and came so close to Askari he could smell the pungent dankness of his skin and clothes after his days of confinement.
‘I wish I hadn’t killed Hindal.’
‘You? I thought it must have been Kamran. . ’
‘It wasn’t. It was me.’
‘But why? How had he injured you?’
‘I didn’t mean to kill him. It was an accident. A cruel coincidence of fate. I was on a raid with some of my men on a moonless night. In the darkness we encountered a small party of fast-moving riders who wouldn’t halt or identify themselves. I shot an arrow at their leader who tumbled from his saddle as the rest of his men fled in panic. When I looked at the body I. . I saw it was Hindal. . ’ Askari said dully, eyes avoiding Humayun’s. ‘I ordered my men to leave his body outside the walls of Kabul where it would be found before wild beasts took it so you could give him a decent burial.’
‘I did. He lies near our father as he wanted.’ Humayun was still adjusting to the genuine remorse he saw on his half-brother’s face when a thought struck him like a shaft of light suddenly illuminating a dark corner.
‘Hindal was the reason you surrendered when you did, rather than attacked me, wasn’t he? You might well have been able to kill me. . ’
‘Yes. My guilt weighed on me. Everything felt so futile. I didn’t want to add another brother’s death to the burden of regret I already carry.’
Humayun felt tears prick his own eyes as he thought over Askari’s tale. Why had Hindal put himself at risk by riding south with only a few men into lands where he must have known he might encounter Kamran’s and Askari’s robber bands? Was it wishful thinking to think Hindal might have been on his way to Kabul to seek a reconciliation with him? Now he would never know. .
For a few moments, both brothers were silent. Then Askari slowly crossed the room to the window and looked down into the courtyard. As he did so a half-smile crossed his face. ‘When we were children, Hindal and I used to stand here sometimes while the guards drilled in the courtyard. At other times we watched you and Kamran learning to fight with dagger and sword. We were very impressed — compared with us you seemed like grown men, warriors. . We also watched our father ride out on his invasion of Hindustan from here. We’d never seen anything like it — so many thousands of soldiers, so many baggage wagons assembled in the meadows below the citadel, so much noise and excitement in the early morning light. Hindal was yelling with excitement though he didn’t really understand what was happening. . Humayun. . ’
‘What?’
‘Do you intend to execute me?’
‘Probably not.’
Askari closed his eyes for a moment. ‘In that case, help me find a way to make peace with myself and with the past. . ’
‘How can I do that?’
‘Let me make the journey to Mecca, the haj. I want to atone for what happened to Hindal. . ’
‘You want to make the pilgrimage to Mecca?’ Why not, Humayun thought after a moment or two. Making the haj would take Askari nearly a thousand miles from Kabul and from Kamran for months — years even. It was a better solution than incarceration or exile and might even provide Askari with the spiritual comfort he seemed in such need of. ‘Are you certain this is what you want?’
Askari nodded.
‘Then I will send an escort with you under the command of one of my best young officers, Mohamed Azruddin.’
‘To spy on me?’ Askari smiled bleakly.
‘No. To protect you — it is a long and hazardous journey by sea as well as by land. . You may not believe me but I wish things could have been different between us. It is too late for that now — the past will always lie between us — but I pray that you find the peace you are seeking.’
Chapter 22
Kamran Padishah
One clear early spring morning, five months after Askari’s departure on his long journey to Mecca, Humayun stood at the stone casement of his apartments in his fortress palace overlooking Kabul and gazed towards the mountains to the south. Although there had been no falls for some weeks, their jagged peaks were still snow-capped. The winds were chill and Humayun pulled his fur-lined cloak tightly round him. Few travellers made the journey up through the passes from Hindustan at this time of year but as Humayun watched, a small caravan appeared round the bend of the road that led south to Hindustan.
As the caravan got closer, Humayun saw that it comprised a few horsemen, no more than twenty — presumably merchants and their attendants — and about twenty or thirty pack camels. The riders were all well protected against the cold by heavy sheepskin jackets and most had scarves wound round their faces. The camels’ warm breath hung in the cold air as they plodded slowly up the hill under the burden of heavy panniers crammed with trade goods strapped on either side of their bodies, and headed towards one of the caravanserais that clustered just inside the thick walls of the city. After ten minutes, the caravan disappeared from view through the city gates into the caravanserai. Shortly afterwards, Humayun saw the smoke of extra fires lit to warm and feed the newcomers rise from within its walls.
Thinking no more about the caravan, Humayun looked down into the courtyard of the fort where Bairam Khan was teaching the ten-year-old Akbar some of the finer points of swordplay, watched by Akbar’s milk-brother Adham Khan. Akbar — a strong, muscular boy for his age — was clearly perfecting a technique for parrying Bairam Khan’s thrusts. Dodging beneath his tutor’s shield, he stabbed the protective quilted padding worn for such training sessions with his blunted sword.
As Akbar and Bairam Khan paused for breath, Humayun saw a man wearing a heavy sheepskin jacket, his face muffled beneath a red woollen cloth, enter the courtyard. He spoke urgently to one of the numerous guards, who pointed first to the officers’ quarters and then to Humayun’s own apartments. Ten minutes later, Humayun heard a knock on the door and Jauhar entered. ‘Majesty, one of Ahmed Khan’s spies has arrived, bringing news from the south. Ahmed Khan seeks your urgent permission to bring him into your presence to report in person. They are outside.’
‘Let them come in.’
Moments later, the familiar, straggle-bearded figure of Ahmed Khan app
eared. Behind him was the man in the sheepskin Humayun had seen in the courtyard. He had removed his red scarf and headgear to reveal a stubbly beard and thinning dark hair, both of which made him appear older than he probably was. Ahmed Khan and the newcomer bowed low.
‘What is it, Ahmed Khan?’
‘This is Hussein Kalil — one of our best and most trusted scouts. He has just returned from the south around Khowst.’
‘He was with the caravan that I just saw arrive, wasn’t he? He clearly brings important news if he has come to us so soon after his arrival, without even stopping for a bowl of soup or to warm himself before the fires just lit in the caravanserai.’
‘It is important news — serious too. Your half-brother Kamran is raising yet another rebellion, collecting forces south of Khowst.’
Humayun grimaced. This was news he had half expected to hear but had hoped not to. After Hindal’s death and Askari’s departure on his pilgrimage, Kamran seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth despite the most extensive searches by Humayun’s troops. Humayun had tried to convince himself that Kamran had decided that he too should abandon the struggle and retreated to some remote area or sought exile, leaving Humayun freer than he had ever been since he had lost the throne of Hindustan to focus all his efforts and all his resources on recovering it.
However, in his heart Humayun had known all along that Kamran had always been the most resolute and determined of his fraternal foes and was unlikely ever to desist from his rebellions and liberate Humayun for the reconquest of Hindustan. There could be no peace, no truce between them. Kamran had never lost a deep-seated resentment fuelled by his belief that Humayun’s five-month advantage in age alone had led Babur to give him all. Perhaps he even felt that Babur had loved the unworthy Humayun more than himself — probably his mother Gulrukh had encouraged him in such a belief. Humayun could not be certain of any of this, but he knew he must act against his half-brother once more and this time put an end to his threat for ever. ‘Whereabouts exactly is Kamran?’
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